


This

by R00bs_Teacup



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: F/F, Other, Oxford, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 07:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9592418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00bs_Teacup/pseuds/R00bs_Teacup
Summary: I just suddenly thought, Joan's story line would make much much more sense if she was queer. Also if Morse is queer. Because he is. So this is the story of Joan coming home, my version.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/gifts).



> It is Glim's, as always, because of Reasons.
> 
> Annie belongs to Lucyemers, from the story A Chance Meeting, written for my prompt and gifted to meeee! Yay archiveofourown.org/works/8700112 It's splendid and awesome and all good things.

“You should tell your Mum.”

“What, that you panicked and asked me to marry you?” Joan asks, pouring them both another glass of whiskey. 

“You shouldn’t get drunk, Miss Thursday,” Morse says, watching the shake in her hand. 

“He hit me. I’m getting drunk. My father… when he accosted him for having a relationship with me, he worked it out. That I was… that she is… he’s protective of her, fine. He wants best for her, fine. He hit me? Not so fine.”

“Where is she?” Morse asks, and Joan can see the policeman, which has been hovering all evening (as ever - she is always going to be his governor's daughter), come popping out. “Is she safe?”

“Yes,” Joan says, turning the glass on the coaster, making damp circles in it. It’s from the White Horse pub, she recognises the logo. “She’s safe. He wouldn’t hurt her. He is justified, Morse. It isn’t illegal for me, but it’s not exactly safe or respected.”

Morse’s face does one of its ‘I’m making an making an expression that is expressive of something but I’m not sure what’ twitches, sympathetic, wry, cynical. He never admits to being, but he never outright says ‘no’ either, and when she talks about things, he’ll shift awkwardly and mutter something about Bixby, or Debryn, or, sometimes, embarrassingly, her father. 

“Why should I tell Mum about you asking me to marry you?” Joan asks. 

“Not that,” Morse says, a rare flash of impatience loosing affectionate amusement that he usually keeps in check. She knows that he really would be happy to marry her, he likes her. He’d like to live a quiet, respectable life, and never have to wrestle with this. “This.”

“Why? It would just hurt her, and my father…” 

“Tell your mother. I can’t say why, it’s a confidence of hers that I cannot break. I care about her,” Morse says, then winces and throws his whiskey back, down in one gulp. Joan fills his glass. “Keep it from your father.”

“Yes. He put it into Jim’s head, by threatening to take him in for a ‘nonce’,” Joan says. Morse flinches at the word. “Why tell Mum? It’ll just make things hard for her with Dad. I do love him, Morse.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Morse says, wincing again and twisting his glass in a movement that mirrors her earlier one. His coaster is from the Turf. He knocks it back in one again and grimaces. She raises an eyebrow, offering the bottle again. He nods. 

Joan doesn’t ask why she shouldn’t worry. It forewarns her of the tension, but not the extent of it. When she goes home, the living-room is silent, they’re both sitting in there, not looking at each other or talking. Her father gets up at dinner time and goes to make himself a sandwich. Joan follows, and watches him from the kitchen table. 

“Sandwich?” he offers. 

“Mum doesn’t make tea anymore?” Joan asks. 

“She’s not up to it. I thought knowing you were safe, returning…” he makes an angry movement and tips the sandwich off the plate into the bin. “I’m going out.”

Joan makes dinner for all of them, putting her Dad’s in the oven. He can eat it later, or Morse can. Morse will end up at the pub with him, and will bring him home drunk. Joan will make up the sofa for him before she goes to bed. 

“Mum? I’ve made dinner,” She says. Win looks up, and her tired face brightens seeing Joan. She looks older, more care worn, and tired. “Have you been sleeping?”

“I’ve worried for you,” Win says, getting up and coming over. She looks at Joan, so Joan hugs her. 

“I’m sorry, Mum. I had to… I couldn’t face…”

“It’s alright. I just need to know you’re safe,” Win says. 

They eat quietly, but there isn’t tension in the silence. There’s just a quiet kind of understanding, and a tiredness. Joan is suddenly glad. That her Mum is here, that there is a woman she can sit with like this. Morse is right- she should tell. Morse is a familiar, a kind, a good confidant, but he’s not a woman. 

“Can I tell you something?” Joan asks, looking down at her empty plate, not looking up, not looking at her mother. 

“Yes. I should do the dishes.”

“I’ll do them, Mum. It must be my turn by now,” Joan says, and Win laughs, which makes Joan look up. 

“I missed you, Joanie,” Win says. 

“I missed you. Mum, I didn’t leave because… I left because… and it’s not Jim. Jim’s not… and I’m not coming back. Not… not entirely. I’ll stay in touch and I’ll be closer, but I’m going to be living with… with… With Jamie.”

“He hit you,” Win says, quietly and fierce, and it might have been Fred who hit Jim, but it’s Win who will go to the end of the world and back to make sure Joan knows how to keep herself safe, to protect Joan, to make her safe. Joan smiles and takes her hand. 

“No, Mum. Not Jim. Jamie,” Joan says, and in the rush of affection and gratitude and pleasure at having her Mum close again, she finds the courage. “She’s not like Jim at all.”

“...she,” Win says, and swallows hard, then looks up and laughs. “She. Jamie is a woman?”

“Yes,” Joan says, heart in her mouth, waiting the condemnation that is the only thing she knew before Morse, before Jamie, before others like her. 

“So was Annie. So is Dorothea,” Win says, taking her hand back but only so she can clasp Joan’s in both of hers. 

“Dorothea Frazil?” Joan asks, heart sinking back into her chest, then down to her stomach. So this is what Morse meant, and why he’d been sad about it. 

“I haven’t done anything to hurt your Dad, I just enjoy her company. I love Fred, I really do. If he wants… it’s not…” Win sighs. “Let’s find his and Morse’s stash of whiskey.”

“I’ve already had two,” Joan admits. 

“A third won’t hurt,” Win says, getting up. “You’re grown up, now. Leaving home. A woman. Women drink whiskey.”

Joan laughs, and helps find the stash.

++

Jamie’s never been to Oxford before. Morse waxes lyrical for half an hour about how Joan might show her the city (‘his’ city, he calls it), but in the end Joan just takes her for a walk up the canal to Port Meadow. Out there, no one really notices or cares that they’re holding hands and walking close. It’s cold, the wind’s up, everyone’s sticking close. They’re young women, close friends, and it’s Oxford, full of students clinging to one another. No one bats an eye. Jamie’s shorter than Joan, and it makes a warm bubbling feeling fill Joan up to have her so small and close, her thick cloudy hair tickling Joan’s chin, caught in Joan’s scarf, her hand warm in Joan’s pocket. 

“Jim might follow me, if I come live down here, Joanie,” Jamie says. 

“I can deal with him,” Joan says, a little grimly. She smiles to counter that, and checks they’re mostly alone to kiss Jamie’s head, and her cheek when Jamie looks up. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt ‘im.”

“I like that you could,” Jamie says, laughing. “You’re an odd girl, sometimes.”

“In a good way,” Joan says, and Jamie nods, stopping so they can kiss. Her lips are warm, too, despite the cold. 

“I can help you get a job,” Joan says. “My Dad’s a cop. You know that, I know. What I mean is, he knows people. And Morse. Morse knows someone at the hospital, one of the nurses.”

“I’m not sure I want to go back to that. Maybe, maybe a new start, something different,” Jamie says. 

They start walking again, heading toward the bouncy bridge to turn down the river back to town. 

“I know the woman who runs the Oxford Mail,” Joan says, a little abrupt. “My mother seems to… have a thing for her.”

“Oh?” Jamie says, sounding delighted. “Really? Maybe it runs in families.”

“Why, is your mother?” Joan asks, and Jamie nearly bends double laughing, shaking her head, the twists of her hair bouncing around her joyfully. Joan stops to admire her. 

It’s astounding that she, Joan Thursday, is standing here on Port Meadow, looking at a woman in this way. And even more astounding is that it’s permissible. The place she and Sam used to come to play, and when the floods froze over they ice skated here in their shoes, and walking the dog with her best friend when she was at school, and coming out with Patrick from the bank for that ill-fated sandwich which had turned out to be a date. She hadn’t expected his kiss. Jamie’s, though. Jamie’s lips, Jamie’s eyes, Jamie’s warmth. She’s come to expect that. 

“I love you,” Joan says. “I left home because I couldn’t stand to lie, because my life was unbearably set to a pattern of finding a man and having children and it hurt. I just left, because once… after the business at the bank, I just couldn’t go through the motions. I left because I was desperate. I didn’t expect you.”

“And with that declaration, shall we carry on?” Jamie says, tugging at her hand. “It’s freezing, Jo.”

As they cross the bouncy bridge Jamie leans in close and kisses Joan’s cheek and squeezes her hand and says ‘I love you too’, and it’s simple, and quiet, and wonderful. The river is high, but hasn’t yet burst it’s banks along the towpath, so it’s open all the way to the Botley road. They pause there, deciding if they want to do the loop round by Osney, or get off and walk into town for a cup of tea, get warm before heading back to the station for Jamie to catch the train up to Leamington. 

“If we go somewhere, I’ll have to be more careful,” Joan says. “Let’s keep walking.”

The trees look like lace against the sky, the bare branches delineated against the cold, sharp grey-blue, blurring as it gets darker. Underfoot it’s a little muddy, and they hold onto one another, laughing, the sound of the river rushing by them. The lock is deserted, but they linger, looking around, taking advantage of the emptiness to kiss and wrap around each other and watch the water. They walk the last bends to Folly bridge quietly, holding hands, still, knit tight together. Joan mutters a garbled story about the Oxpens, about her father’s anger at having to clear the area and send everyone up to the new estates. 

“That was years ago, but he still gets mad if you mention it,” joan says, as they approach Folly Bridge. “This is town, again. I’ll walk you to the station.”

Joan finds herself spitting out random facts, care of Morse or her father, as they walk up through town. About Christ Church and the meadow, the Cherwell running up through Pastor’s Pleasure where the dons bathe naked. About the college and the famous alumni, Lewis Carroll and WH Auden, Tom Tower with it’s bell ringing to call in the scholars and dons and ghosts every evening. The castle, the law that nothing can be higher than the tower there, where the old wall runs. Reeling it off like a tour guide, as they get closer and closer to the station. Joan’s voice cracks and she falls silent. They don’t talk the rest of the way, until they’re on the platform. There’s only one other person there, waiting. 

“I’m sorry,” Joan says, tears starting in her eyes. “I should have just stayed in Leamington. Not come home. I could come back with you.”

“No. Jim wouldn’t like it. You Mum needs you, you told me that,” Jamie says, cupping Joan’s cheek. “I want to move here. After all the things you’ve just told me. I’m sure you have a store more. I would like to write, as well.”

“I’ll talk to Frazil,” Joan promises, resting her forehead against Jamie’s. “Get us a flat, find myself a job, set things up for us. Two months, and I’ll see you again?”

“Two months. I do love you, Jo. And I appreciate your strange declaration, earlier, odd girl.”

The train pulls in, and there’s no more time, and then she’s gone. Jamie’s gone. Joan walks home, and her Dad’s not back, just her Mum with the TV on. Joan curls up on the sofa, rests her head on her Mum’s shoulder, and cries a bit. 

++

It’s Win that finds her a job. Cleaning, at first, but at the house of a woman who owns a boutique selling upmarket clothes and jewlery. Joan dresses smartly and makes a good impression, is discrete and hard working, and when the woman puts an ad in the Mail for a shop girl, Joan applies. And gets it. It pays well, and she uses her first month’s money from the cleaning to put down a deposit on a flat in Cowley. It’s near her parents, but not too near. She invites Morse round to celebrate. He brings whiskey, and they sit on the floor, she has no furniture yet, and sip it from the bottle. 

“Miss Frazil talked to your friend on the phone,” Morse says, about halfway through the bottle. “She liked her, she’s very quick and has a way of turning a phrase apparently.”

“She’s good,” Joan says. 

“Joan and Jamie,” Morse says, taking a long drink from the bottle and keeping it for another. “Are you setting up here?”

“Yes,” Joan says. 

“That’s nice, that’s nice,” Morse says. “Very nice. Your neighbours work at the Morris Minor factory and down the chippy, respectively. No criminal records. Seem decent.”

Joan takes the whiskey and doesn’t give it back for a bit, vaguely hoping he’ll get the point and not do background checks on the rest of her neighbours. Or on Jamie. Maybe it would alright if he did one on Jim. 

“He’s her brother,” Joan says. “He was adopted by her family, and he’s very protective of her. It’s a difficult situation. We won’t be cutting him out of our lives.”

“I’ll check on him,” Morse says. “Keep a bit of an eye. Won’t mention to your parents.”

“Thank you.”

“We stick together, keep each other safe,” Morse says. “Not that I… I didn’t mean…”

Joan passes him the whiskey so he can attempt to drown himself to escape embarrassment. Something has changed. In the last few weeks, he’s stopped calling her ‘Miss Thursday’ and being carefully proper. It’s gone along with the changes at home. Fred’s been at work more, and angry more. Frustrated and upset that Win isn’t suddenly bright and happy now Joan is back. 

“I think there’s something the matter with Mum. Nerves,” Joan says. “Or something. She doesn’t leave the house.”

“She’s afraid,” Morse says, quietly, eyes going distant. 

“Yes, I know. I think she’s unwell. She goes to the doctor, she’s been twice. They gave her something to sleep.”

Morse passes her the whiskey. He also has a sofa delivered, the next week, along with a set of fancy whiskey glasses neatly wrapped in paper. Joan packs her things at home, and asks Win to drive her over. It gets her out of the house, and she helps Joan unpack and spread her meagre belongings about. She then takes Joan shopping for kitchen things and a rug for the kitchen floor, a table, dining room chairs. They get some of it from uncle Alfie’s garage. He pats Win on the back and kisses Joan’s cheek and is very awkward. Usually his interactions with them are minimal, soon he’ll be in the kitchen knocking back the alcohol and reminscing about the war with Fred. He’s not related by blood, but he’s related by everything else, and he remembers Joan at five years old and has a soft spot for her and Sam. 

Joan keeps busy. She works Monday through Friday, gets used to cooking and cleaning her own home, manages to fall asleep alone in the flat. She chats with her neighbours and tells them about a girl friend who’s moving down. She shops for groceries, saves up money to buy things for the flat, visits her Mum. Win helps her set things up at the flat, and seems comfortable there. She comes for tea on the weekends. One Sunday she brings Dorothea Frazil, and it’s awkward for five minutes before Joan realises that Win told her the truth - there’s nothing but affection and ease between them. They’re not doing anything beyond being friends, right now. Joan notices how much her mother likes Frazil, and how comfortable she is, though. And wonders if it would be the end of the world, if that happened. 

++

The first night Jamie’s there, she cries. They sit up late, on the sofa with whiskey in the glasses Morse gave her. Joan swaps them for tea after the first glass, in cups Win gave her. 

“I’m glad to be here, really,” Jamie says, a handful of tissues clutched in her hand. “Jim’s been nice, these past months. I’ll miss him. He’s going to be angry about this, though.”

“I’m sorry,” Joan says. “I wish I could make the world better. Everyone kind.”

They listen to some music, and then go to bed. It’s strange, sharing again after months apart, and this being their bed. Not Joan’s or Jamie’s, theirs. It’s good too, though. To have Jamie there in her arms, quiet and calm if still unhappy, curled in close. Joan embraces her, wrapping tight around her, holding her close, and soothes until she falls asleep. Then she lies awake, on guard, until the adrenaline of being together finally fades and she can sleep herself. It’s Friday, and Saturday her Mum usually comes round. Usually Joan gets up early to clean and tidy up. She does the minimum Monday to Friday after work, but most of it gets done on Saturday, along with the laundry. 

She’s late, this Saturday. It’s too tempting to stay in bed with Jamie, who’s still asleep. Eventually Joan tears herself away and pads around the flat with a cup of tea, idly putting things to rights, doing the dishes, keeping quiet. She leaves a note for Jamie, once she’s dressed, and pops to the shops for a bit of cake and more tea, and some bread for lunch. There’s still some soup and cheese and things in the fridge, that’ll do. They can get chips for dinner. Jamie’s up, when she gets back in, curled on the sofa with the radio on, hugging a cushion. Joan kisses her forehead and vacuums, puts the kettle on. Jamie knows Win is going to show up, and she goes to get dressed before long, coming out to the kitchen looking neat, tucking herself against Joan. They stand together, looking out of their window. 

“I think this will be good,” Jamie murmurs, smiling properly, finally. “Miss Frazil has offered me a job, after I sent her a piece of writing.”

“That’s brilliant. You’re brilliant. I think it will be good, too,” Joan says.


End file.
